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Food and Drink

February 14, 2018

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, traditionally the time when millions of people, religious or otherwise, abstain from temptation or a bad habit for 40 days. I read that in the US, Twitter has recorded the top five Lenten choices to give up as alcohol, social networking, chocolate, chips and twitter (!). Fast food and being mean/swearing closely follow in 6th and 7th place.

Last year I did pretty well, giving up sweets and processed sugary foods for the whole duration but after I lapsed and soon went back to eating it. This year I jumped the gun a bit as I gave up caffeine and sugar in the New Year, but I can feel myself slipping back. Just one a week has become one a day, and then two, etc.

So, this Lent I'm recommitting to staying off the caffeine and sugar for 40 days as part of a wider aim to be free of both for 90 days. My skin dryness has been so much less over the last six weeks and I'm feeling a lot calmer in general, so it is well worth the effort to maintain that. I'm not keen on herbal teas very much - they smell so nice and taste of nothing - so I will mostly be drinking different Redbush varieties and mint green tea.

November 07, 2017

Well, some of the pork came back from the butcher last night, and Martin and I spent a frantic two hours getting everything portioned up. On the table above is one of five x 5kg bags of sausages, which adds to the existing 25kg in the freezer, making 50kg. Then there were five x 5kg bags of mince, which the cats nearly killed us for. Georgie is not keen on raw mince and often walks away from a plate but he woofed this stuff back in double quick time.

Next week I have 45kg of back and streaky bacon coming. I'm quite interested to see how fully formed the bacon slices are. The last pig had the 'head' of the bacon but not the tail. Then in December there will be around 30-40kg of gammon, just in time for Christmas. And in the New Year I will be rendering all of the fat for lard, purifying it and using it to make soap.

I popped into town with MIL today and came back with six new books to add to the collection. I was quite excited to find the Jewish cooking one, as I have wanted to cook an authentic Jewish chicken soup with dumplings for years (by the way, I am aware of the irony of having a post about pork and Jewish cooking!). I've been turfing out some books over the last couple of weeks, but I just seem to bring in so many interesting ones to replace them!

I had decided to see if I could sell off some of them, as well as some clutter, to put towards Christmas. I changed my mind about selling my unwanted books on eBay, as I realised the fees for it and PayPal are ridiculous and the sold prices are tiny. Instead I sent one box of 10 off to Ziffit, and managed to get £15.70 back. I'm due to drop another box tomorow and see if I can get the £17.50-ish I was quoted. I still have another two sets of 10 to go for similar money plus a big fruit tray of books that are not being accepted yet to check back on periodically. If they are still here next spring I will take them to a car boot sale.

Speaking of which, I forgot to mention we did a car boot sale a month ago and made about £140. I also sold a pair of curtains that used to be in the back room of the old house and managed to clear about £19 for them. I have a couple of pairs of curtains I bought at a car boot sale plus various single curtains I bought for fabric, so those will be going on ebay too plus there is a big box of vintage linens I might have a go at selling as well - I won't sell them individually, just let them go as a job lot. There is a lot more stuff to try and get rid of, plus a further car load for another car boot sale, but that will now not be until the Spring.

So lots of activity here in preparation for the silly season ahead and a slightly less cluttered New Year hopefully.

October 09, 2017

I'm writing this post in response to someone carefully 'splaining** to me that I should sell my surplus pork through Facebook, and that I could have a profitable little sideline. I told them how lovely that all sounded but here on Planet Earth nothing could be further from the truth. I can 'sell' privately to family and friends, but to the public is a whole different ballgame generously littered with regulations - regulations that require money to fulfil.

I looked into it a few years ago, laughed and permanently shelved the idea.

Meat being sold to the general public must be cut in a licensed cutting establishment overseen by the Meat Hygiene Service. You can't ask a butcher to do it and then collect the meat to sell, because the law states only butchers can sell the meat they cut.

Meat must be labelled in accordance with the Food Labelling Regulations 1996, listing all ingredients in order of amount (easy for a pork loin, not so easy for sausages), weight of product (sometimes Trading Standards insist on checking your scales are calibrated) and other information required, so you'll need to factor in printing and labelling costs.

Trading Standards may insist on checking the health records of your animals. Your premises will be checked by it for approval (and if they don't approve you either bring them up to scratch or find alternative premises).

You must include a sell-by and use-by date, so if your food doesn't sell into the bin it goes (not the regular bin, a proper commercial disposal bin that you pay for).

Everything must be handled, stored and transported hygienically (and in the case of meat, chilled so you'll have to have some kind of chiller unit in your car/van). All meat for sale must have its own fridge and freezer, it is against the regs to store domestic and commercial food together, so you need to factor in separate equipment.

You need a food hygiene certificate, so off to school you go to get one. There are varying levels of achievement and varying prices.

If you want your butcher to sell your meat for you, they will have strict rules when it comes to fat thickness - most pork chops for example have a regulation one inch thick rind because consumers don't like paying for lots of fat. My pigs, being traditional breeds, will have a lot of fat, probably over two inches. Butchers also want a regular supply, no one offs, and he will also be looking to drive a hard bargain on the price so he can make as much money as possible

People want recognisable joints. Not many people want half or a whole pig, they want a bit of pork loin or bacon. Very nice, except that means all the choice cuts will go quickly leaving you with the bits not many people like to eat.

Finally, insurance. Insurance is an absolute must to deal with anything untoward happening, especially as we live in a litigious society with people who like to chance their arm and make money by submitting spurious claims. Many a small producer has been brought to their knees by the trouble caused by chancers.

I've heard variations of this theme over the years for lambs, rabbits, cows and bees and the arguments are the same. If you produce food for Joe Public, you have to be prepared to do it as a proper business and spend money on making it happen. Of course I could always do what some people do and just do it illegally and hope I don't get caught, but that is no way to live.

All in all, not worth the bother.

The best I'm hoping to do on our smallholding is produce quality food for our own consumption, reduce our reliance on supermarkets and improve the quality of life for us and the animals we keep.

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** 'Splaining is that lovely patronising thing that some people do when they try and explain your business to you as if you are clueless. For example, a man I once contemplated dating 'splained cancer genetics to me despite knowing I had a PhD in cancer genetics and spent three years in a lab researching it (as he was male I think it is called mansplaining. No idea what the equivalent is when a woman does it). I ended up walking off leaving him blustering mid-sentence. What a knob.

August 07, 2017

Nothing like a good puffball. I found a group today while I was mowing the outside boundary, and picked two for a few delicious meals. I consider it my treat for having to mow a ridiculous amount of greenery on the property and a lot healthier than packets of Skittles.

Martin and his mother are squeamish and won't touch anything foraged, but I love getting a free meal. I dice them, fry them in a little oil or butter, add some herbs, sea salt, pepper and a couple of beaten egg and make a sort of mushroom scramble with a good dollop of tomato ketchup. They don't go slimy like normal mushrooms, they release a little liquid, but on the whole they stay really firm and meaty. A lot of people liken them to tofu. Here's a few interesting ideas for recipes.

While Martin and his mum had river cobbler tonight, I had the smallest of the two puffballs in an eggy-herby scramble with a big glass of red wine. Nice!

I also picked a big bowlful of Victoria plums and a few of the last Monach's, so I'll be making desserts in the coming days. I'm very partial to cooking up a few with port and cinnamon, but Martin and his mother are mad about crumbles (funny how they're not funny when it comes to foraged fruit in puddings)! And yes, I collected them in my cowboy hat - I was wearing it to keep the sun off my head while mowing and my shirt wasn't large enough for the collection job in the end.

June 18, 2017

I've had the whole weekend to myself. Martin's away staying with his brother for the usual Le Mans 24hr race-fest that happens once a year, and I would rather chew my own fist off than watch cars going round and round for 24 hours on the TV in someone else's house. Nope, I opt for peace, tranquility, gardening, lounging, spritzers and reading the weekend papers, with the odd episode of All Creatures Great and Small thrown in. Bliss. Going to edge the lawn shortly and deadhead the roses, then veg out somewhere. All the housework was done in the week in anticipation.

I picked some of the strawberries first thing this morning and decided to dry them along with some aging bananas threatening to turn to mush. MIL bought me the dehydrator as a Christmas present in 2015, but what with moving I have had scant time to use it until now.

The pigs (23 weeks old!) seemed to be a bit listless when I went to check on them earlier, so while I cleaned their water trough I spread around a bale of straw. You'd think they had never seen straw the way they behaved. Then I peeked into their ark and realised they had eaten all of their bedding, so they probably haven't seen straw for a while. i think they prefer to lie on the cool soil instead of the bedding though - attempts to put more straw into their ark has resulted in it being turfed out or shoved up the sides. Obviously too warm for them.

So life ticks along. MIL due to move in soon, probably the week after next, and then that chapter of our lives can be put to bed. We all started the journey last January so it's taken a long time to get this point. Let's hope it all works out!

May 04, 2017

Blimey it's freezing! We've relented and put the log burner on this evening to try and heat the place up without putting on the heating again. I only switched it off just before Easter and I'm trying to eke the oil out at the moment until I have enough to pay for a load with the money in my Boilerjuice budget account. I have a standing order to transfer £55 a month into it and I need one more payment in there and then I can order a load, otherwise they'll take both the additional cost of the oil off my debit card and then this month's budget payment as well.

As you can see from above, we had a sick chicken in the house since my last post. Found Midnight off her feet in the pen, wings spread out and forehead on the floor so got her into the kitchen, set the 'hospital bed' up in an electric seed bed and propped her up in it (the blanket comes down at night so it is dark and private). Turns out she was bunged up with rotting grass which was poisening her so a couple of small doses of dulcolax, some masage, walking exercise and good food saw her 'unbunged' and back in the pen with Twilight after five days. Phew.

Meanwhile I had some exciting escapades today. Two of the glass panes in the side of the greenhouse shook themselves out and smashed on the ground during high winds at the weekend. I managed to find a glazier who would cut me two replacement panes to the right size for £7.00, but if I wanted them this week I had to pick them up from him either before 5pm today or on Saturday morning before 1pm. Martin works Saturday so I had more chance of getting a lift there and back today as he finishes around 3:30pm. I ordered and duly promised to pick up today. Of course, today was the only day in yonks when Martin unexpectedly had a huge delivery load and had to do overtime so we had to play by ear as to when he would finish. Nevermind, I set off walking and arrived at the glazier 40 minutes later, feeling quite smug about getting my daily exercise. What I didn't anticipate was that Martin would be so late he would simply not make it to pick me up at all.

I set off back home and walked those two heavy panes of glass all the chuffin way back home. It took me 1hr and 20 minutes battling a stupidly strong wind and spitting rain that had whipped up, stopping for rest breaks and texting to check on Martin's ETA status. I also developed a hole in the thigh of my tights AGAIN so the chafing started up in the same place as before while I was on the footpath across the fields. For the first time in ages though, the footpath was full of people in both directions walking dogs, biking, laughing, having fun, etc., so I couldn't stop and get my hand up my skirt to arrange myself. I ended up back at the house before Martin, thigh burning, arms aching. The pigs and chickens were frantic for their afternoon feed, the washing was horizontal on the line and some stuff had lost its pegs and nearly blown off, and I'd forgotten I put Fleagle out in the early afternoon so she was beside herself at sitting out in the worsening weather. Then horror of bloody horrors I discovered I had left the sodding outside hose on in the pig pen, so that was flooded. It took me a further 20 minutes running around outside fixing everything before I could get my key in the door. However, there was a sort of grim satisfaction I had achieved what I did. Spirit of the Blitz and all that. I will survive.

So given my escapades, i refused to cook on the basis of exceptional knackeredness and this evening's gastronomic feast was a cheapie pizza in front of a comforting fire and some quality time with my latest snuffles.

I did bit of charity shopping with my mum at the weekend and managed to bag a set of interesting cookbooks for £5. Normally, there are slim pickings in the cookbook sections in charity shops, with multiple copies of mainsteam books from Nigella et al, so i was pleased to find these. Two of them are American, and I always enjoy those because of the interesting ingredients and different approaches taken to food. I was always surprised by the variety of foods when I lived in America due to the diversity of the population. San Francisco feels very european and was one of the places I felt I could live after I holidayed there back in 2000. The book top left - Moosewood Restaurant - is destined to pass under the nose of my niece, as it is vegetarian and vegan recipes.

On the same trip I found a perfect Laura Ashley silk lampshade for £4. The shade on one of my table lights managed to get a dent in it during the move, but I just swivelled it round to face the wall and it never showed, however, the other day I realised that in addition to the dent I could see two orange lines running through the weave, one on each side of the shade. No idea where they came from, but they are part of the fabric and now clearly visible. Perhaps it is a flawed thread and as it aged it darkened in the sunlight. I was well chuffed to find the Laura Ashely shade in perfect condition, to replace it as they normally retail for about £30+.

I may now be someone who buys new curtains, but I draw the line at £30 for a small lampshade!

March 05, 2017

I've to'd and fro'd over getting a pressure cooker for a long time. They can do wonders with cheap cuts of meat and often cook things cheaper and faster than ordinary cooking could.

However, I have natural fear of things exploding in my face. I remember my mother's pressure cooker rocking away on the stove when I was growing up, and I hated the thing. Wouldn't go near it. She's be standing there working out how many pounds of pressure to apply to whatever was going to be cooked and fiddling with the valve. Urg. Run away. Now of course technology has moved on. All of the pressures and times are already programmed in, and it's as simple as add the ingredients, choose the programme, hit start and walk away. And they can bring down your electric bill as well, as they are cheaper than using gas and electric to cook with.

At the moment, we have an Neff touch control ceramic hob to cook with, which can use up to 2.2kW per burner per hour (with the oven at 4.8kW), and is pushing our bills up massively. Finally after seeing yet another £60+ monthly electric bill come in on Friday and knowing I had wiggle room in the budget as I had no council tax to pay this month, I steeled myself and bought one, a multi-function six litre 20-in-1 model. I figured if I was going to get one I might as well spent the extra on the additional functions and see just how much of the daily cooking I can do with it.

Cooks from frozen – cook a whole chicken straight from the freezer in just 60 minutes

That really settled it for me, especially cooking joints from frozen. Also, I have a lot of meat in the freezer which I often bypass because it will take too long to cook, such as stewing beef. I have to remember to get it in the slow cooker in the morning to have a decent meal ready by the evening, and I've been so busy I often just don't manage to do that.

I managed to do a beef in red wine stew last night in 30 minutes flat, and then this morning I made bacon and eggs using the fry function. I have lentil soup for my lunches this week, which is currently cooking (in 20 minutes!) and then I'm going to cook up a whole load of potatoes for mash to portion for the freezer, which should take 15 minutes as well. Later on, I'm going for a hunt in the freezer for a frozen chicken I know is in there and that will do for our dinner tonight. Then tomorrow the chicken bones and a large beef rib marrow bone are going in there to make stock. Normally it takes me a good 24 hours in a slow cooker to make really good gelatinous stock, so I'm hoping to get an equivalent stock in under an hour.

But what of my money-saving halogen oven? I still have that, but it is sitting very forlorn in a box in the corner of the kitchen. Andrew James replaced the lid of it free of charge within it's warranty period, as the metal inside had gone rusty. I changed its bulb last year and used it for a very short period of time before the bulb went again. I haven't done anything with it since we moved. While the bulbs are relatively cheap at about £7, it took two of us to change it and it was a hair-raising experience that involved brute force at one point and electrical tape. We both looked at each other afterwards as if to say "should it really have been that hair-raising? If so, maybe a consumer shouldn't be doing it?" I'm also not sure if our fumbling was the reason the bulb went so shortly afterwards.

Now, the halogen oven is a 1300w product and can cook things 30-40% quicker than a normal fan oven, hence it being money-saving, so by my calculation using the 1000w digital pressure cooker should save even more money. I can also steam veg and pasta in the pressure cooker, which you can't really do using a halogen cooker, and supposedly bake and make jam. I will be testing that last one shortly, as I have two tins of Mamade in the cupboard to make marmalade with. However, one disadvantage is that I can't cook anything dry, like roast potatoes, chips/wedges or garlic bread so I will order another halogen oven bulb and see if by combining it with the digital pressure cooker I can bring down the electric bill.

I shall report back at the end of March, although I won't be able to get a full picture until the middle of April, as our electric billing period runs from the middle of the month.

January 29, 2017

February is another month of living out of the freezers and cupboards. Not exclusively, I'm still buying milk, bread, fresh fruit and some veg, as I have quite a bit of frozen veg to get through, both shop bought and home-grown. Mostly the bulk of every meal will be out of the freezers and cupboards.

Tonight's meal was a bit of a spur of the moment concoction. A small piece of sliced beef skirt, some chopped onion, sliced orange pepper, tin of chopped tomatoes, and a pack of gluten-free fajita seasoning that had been hanging around. A bit of water, and then into the oven for just under two hours. Served it with some of the previously cooked and frozen hassleback potatoes and a some mixed veg (as you can see from Martin's plate, he's not a massive veg fan!). Nice. Quite spicy.

While the oven was on, I did a tray of jam tarts from some frozen pastry and home-made jam.

While I was looking at some nutritional information for some of the meat I eat, I was horrified to discover how poor it was. Pork is a fairly lean meat - it has a fatty rind but that can be taken off - but anyone with even a modicum of common sense can see that a pork chop claiming to have around 30.6g of protein and a whopping 31g of saturated fat is one that has been heavily adulterated. A good pork chop should be around 4-7g of saturated fat and 20g of protein, levels you see in organic /free range pork. Something is very wrong with the 'standard' food being sold in the supermarkets.

That solidifies my thoughts about rearing my own food, and eliminates any doubts I had on the magnitude of the task ahead. This year I will replace all shop bought pork with my own. Then lamb. Then chicken. And in a few years time beef. I will also be looking to eat more sustainable wild food, not farmed, as farmed fish and fowl has omega 3 and 6 levels that are completely upside down.

January 06, 2017

Well the tree is down, the lights are packed away and the decorations have been boxed and put in the loft. The living room looks very drab now, apart from a splash of colour from the poinsetta.

I was lucky enough to receive a small smoothie maker/blender for Christmas (pictured here with one of its three beakers). What a fantastic piece of kit. I have always struggled to get my five portions of fruit and veg a day, usually going a bit too heavy on the fruit rather than veg. With this little gadget, I'm getting all sorts of great veggies squeezed into my diet, as blended in with a small amount of fruit and/or juice the taste just disappears.

At the moment, I'm having a simple early morning smoothie of a good handful of spinach, some kale, a banana, half a glass of fresh orange, and then into that I add a probiotic and glutamine powder (both of which help my IBS). If it is a bit thick I add a bit of water to it. I could see that it will prove very useful to use up odds and ends of fruit and veg in the fridge.

Then I have committed to making soups every other day, as they are a good standby when you are hungry and tempted to snack. Last night I made two pints of soup using some end of day discounted veg, which included a punnet of mushrooms, a third of a cauliflower, an onion, half a celery head, and a potato, plus some leftover grated Parmesan cheese, garlic, all purpose seasoning, thyme, sea salt, pepper and stock from the Christmas turkey, which I had frozen. I didn't use the smoothie maker for that, as you are not supposed to put in hot liquids so my stick blender was used, but I did use it to whizz up the veg for the pan before cooking.

Lunches at the moment tend to be spinach, rocket or kale onto toast and topping with a dry fried egg.

So all told, I'm managing around 8-9 portions of fruit and veg. Today it will be closer to 10, as I have some Christmas dates to use up and I'll have them as a sweet treat.

In the evenings, Martin and I have been consciously spending time on some of our hobbies. I have committed to finishing this needlepoint, and have taken out a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime about a week ago to accompany me on that journey. We have no paying cable TV or online TV subscriptions, only Freeview, and we have been discussing whether Amazon Prime would be a worthwhile addition at £7.99 per month. It would kill a few entertainment birds with one stone - better quality programming in the form of dramas and documentaries, music, kindle unlimited - as well as give us free one-day delivery and discounts on some of the items we currently buy online frequently.

I've watched the first season of The Vikings, which was ok but I didn't have any desire to see the second unfortunately. I was a bit disappointed about that, as I had seen a number of ads for it when it first came out and thought it looked like something I would enjoy. I'm now on the first season of Outlander, which is a bit more up my street, with men in kilts and the fantastic scenery of the highlands. I had that on my WishList, so now I can strike that out. I also managed to buy some supplements for my mother at the special Prime price of £3.63 a pack instead of £4.06 that we had been paying, and these were delivered straight away to her the next day, instead of sitting in my basket until I had a £20 spend for her so I could get free delivery.

I shall be keeping a note of how much value I get from Prime, and then make a decision in a few weeks about whether to keep it.